David Fairchild is lead pastor at the West Seattle location of Mars Hill Church. He posted a note to his congregation that somebody who is in charge of the website thought should be read by the rest of the Mars Hill community. While I am not interested in criticizing for the sake of being critical, I must confess that after the hopeful feedback from members yesterday, this communication seemed more like old school than change.
You can read it and draw your own conclusions. However, I surely wouldn’t bring up giving to this congregation unless there was some information provided first. Fairchild says:
3) GIVE. This is a sensitive subject during such a tumultuous time. But if we’re going to have a future church that is healthy and reproducible, the whole church needs to worship through giving. I know many have held their giving until the end of this investigation, but I want to encourage you to begin again. We’ll need a strong foundation to discern how to move forward. We want to make decisions that are based on accurate giving data which reflects where we truly are. Giving is an act of worship and good for our own soul.
Based on the outrage that hit my inbox today, this did not go over well.
I mainly post this to follow up on yesterday’s hopeful post about change. Apparently, we aren’t going to get a substantial statement as a follow up to the pastors’ meeting described by members earlier in the week.